Help upgrading a streaming system please

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I have been using a Squeezebox Touch for several months now and nearly finished ripping my library in FLAC and plan to transfer this to a suitable NAS in the near future.

I feed the SB Touch into the DAC in a Quad CD-P2 and listen through Primare I30 and Spendor A5 speakers and the sound has been much better than I expected.

Originally I had been thinking about going down the route of a Linn or Naim streaming solutions and bought the SB Touch as a stopgap whilst I ripped the library and waited to see what other products may come on the market.

I have been very impressed with the SB Touch and it's ease of use (especially with ipod/ipod software) and I use it all the time. So my questions are;

1) Am I better to forget the streamers I initially looked at, keep the SB Touch as the source / streamer and instead look at upgrading the DAC?

2) If the DAC is the most sensible approach - what would show a real improvement on the Quad CD99-P2?

3) I have seen lots of arguments in various forums that the digital source is just supplying the same 1's and 0's so should not really make a great difference and presumably it is the DAC that has the greatest influence.But is the source still important? I have noticed that although I play the SB Touch as FLAC through the Quad - when I play the corresponding CD in the Quad there is a small (but noticeable) improvement in quality - slightly fuller more detailed sound. When not comparing side by side the sound of the SB Touch is still very good through the Quad and doesn't bother me when listening to it daily - but it does show there is a difference somewhere so it raises the question in my mind regarding the source - or is it the optical connection?

Any advice on the best step forward to upgrade playback of a digital library would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Penfold

 

[Craig M.]

1. - yes

2. - sorry, don't know

3. - it could be that your cdp is simply better optimised to play a cd than it is its digital input. does your cdp have a digital out? see if you can get a home demo of a dac and try plugging the cdp (if possible) and the sb in and comparing them with a level playing field.

if it was me, i'd be looking at a new dac. i've compared a few cdplayers as a transport with my mac mini into a beresford 7510, 7520, dacmagic, cyrus dacxp, chord qbd76 and now my dac1 - apart from the cyrus they all sounded the same with either cdp or mac. as to the dacxp being worse with the mac (a LOT worse) the only thing i can think of is that, being an older design, its jitter rejection isn't as capable as a more modern dac that has been designed with a computer as a transport in mind.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Craig

Thanks for that. Your suggestion is a good one if I can find a dealer that will ideally allow some home demos - the Quad does have an optical output so a test through another DAC would make sense and also ensure that any change was an improvement and not a sideways move.

But it does raise the question whether the source is also important - quality of the digital outputs etc in the same way you noticed a possible problem with the input on th dacxp.

At the moment I have a source in the SB Touch and a DAC in the Quad CD Player. In your opinion what would the ideal split of budget be between source and DAC to get the best out of a digital library? E.g. would it be 75% on the DAC and 25% on the source or a different split? This would help me work out the best upgrade path and whether any of the one box solutions do in fact offer good value for money.

Like you I suspect the DAC is going to be the most important link and I can audition products to see if they improve on the Quad - but although I like the SB Touch and am not keen to change (it supports Spotify and Last FM and has a good user interface which I would not easily give up unless for same or better) I do want to get the best sound quality and if that means looking at the source as well then I must consider it and any advice in this area would also be greatly appreciated.

I notice you have the Benchmark DAC 1 which is one of the products I am interested in - judging by your list of DAC's you did some thorough auditioning. Can you tell me a bit more about this DAC and what you think of it now you have presumably had it a while?

Many thanks

Penfold